Sitting down for tea with a terrorist is a typical part of Ahmad El-Muhammady’s day. So is inviting recovering extremists to his home, visiting them while travelling and doling out advice on their girlfriend problems via Whatsapp.

El-Muhammady isn’t your average public servant: he was appointed to an extremist rehabilitation team by the Malaysian government in 2011. He and his colleagues work with detainees, earning their trust, mapping their motivations and deradicalising them before they are allowed to re-enter society.

But the relationship doesn’t end once prisoners are released: El-Muhammady will stay in touch with his charges “forever”, he said. “As long as I live, I will count them as my friends. Some of them have become my best friends.”

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Malaysia’s counter-terrorism strategy is a blend of hard tactics — such as detention and monitoring — and soft approaches, like talk therapy and post-release care. As the threat of global terror grows, more governments are using force, detention, torture and other aggressive interrogation techniques to catch and squeeze information out of suspects.

But these techniques are not only controversial — they often don’t get to the heart of the problem: the terrorist ideology. In the mid-2000s, Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) realised that punitive measures were only further radicalising extremists: by treating them inhumanely, interrogators were sowing seeds of revenge.

"Some [terrorists] have become my best friends"

The RMP launched its rehabilitation program in 2005 to fight the root causes of terror. Through the program, police officials work with academics and religious scholars to understand the nature of terrorists’ ideology and correct misinterpretations of religious doctrines and discourse.

Statistics are sparse, but seem to suggest the program is working. From 2001 to 2012, only eight of 289 convicted and released Malaysian terrorists reoffended. Over 2012 to 2018 — the height of the Syrian conflict and ISIS’ power — more than 300 people were detained in Malaysia for terrorism charges.

To contend with this new influx, the RMP revamped the rehabilitation program under the 2015 Prevention of Terrorism Act. In June of this year, the first nine detainees who completed the program were released. None have reoffended.

The human approach to fighting extremism

The goal is to allow terrorists to reintegrate with dignity, which can prevent them from returning to militancy once out of detention. Rehabilitation officers like El-Muhammady are tasked with fostering long-term connections with the terrorists, playing the multipronged role of coach, confidante, mentor and friend.

“This is why the program is so successful: the relationship between detainee and investigative officer is a sustainable one. They always communicate with each other and have regular visits,” said El-Muhammady. "This isn't done elsewhere."

This seemingly judgment-free approach to rehabilitation is in stark contrast to how other countries contend with terrorism: the US allegedly detained and tortured terror suspects indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay. France shut down mosques it thought were hiding extremists. The UK called citizens who had travelled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS enemies of the state and stripped them of their citizenship. Several others have threatened to do the same.

"I regard them as teachers, even if they are terrorists"

While other countries, like the UK, have programs in place to deradicalise people considered at risk of extremism, few countries attempt to rehabilitate convicted terrorists and allow them to re-enter society.

There is one comparable approach: Denmark’s Aarhus model — dubbed the “hug a terrorist” policy by the media. When other countries shut out citizens who travelled to Syria and Iraq, Denmark said they could come back freely. Psychiatrists and mentors work with extremists as they re-join society, helping them with everything from enrolling in school to building a group of friends. The support helps them reintegrate, which authorities say weakens radicals’ resolve.

But rehabilitating terrorists is no easy job. El-Muhammady, who is also a professor of political science and Islamic studies at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, may spend the day serving as an expert witness in court or working with investigators to narrow down a list of suspects after an attack But later that evening, he’ll still be expected to meet a former militant for coffee, or answer another’s call of crisis at 2 a.m.

"Sympathy drives terrorism"

“You have to have a certain passion to be able to do this job, because sometimes you need to do things beyond the call of duty to help them. You need to answer calls at any time saying, ‘I’m in trouble; please talk to me’,” said El-Muhammady. “It’s a learning process for me, too: I regard them as teachers, even if they are terrorists.”

It’s hard to find reliable statistics on the breadth of terrorism in Malaysia, but analysts say the Muslim-majority country is at high risk for threats. In a 2015 Pew Research Centre poll, 12% of Muslim Malaysians said they had a “favourable” view of ISIS.

While Malaysia’s efforts to deprogram radicals have been lauded by other countries, its “hard” approaches to combatting terror have drawn criticism. The Worldwide Movement for Human Rights reports that terror protection laws are being used arbitrarily to arrest and detain people without trial. It also reports instances of police abuse and a rise in cases of custodial death: there were eight last year.

How to earn a terrorist’s trust

Throughout a 90-minute interview, El-Muhammady does not utter one derogatory word about the 100-plus men — and two women — he’s helped re-enter society. El-Muhammady says there's one simple thing that drives people to terror: sympathy.

“Muslims have a problem in this world. They are subjected to oppression, occupation and murder. Their countries are occupied by foreign forces. Once terrorists get a hold of this narrative, they come up with graphics, videos and social media posts designed to convince people of the legitimacy of their narratives, and to drive sympathy,” said El-Muhammady.

From there, terror networks push would-be extremists to donate money, travel to conflict zones or commit an attack in their own country. They often prey on lonely, emotionally fragile people who, because of religious discrimination or racism, have been pushed to the fringes of society.

"My job is to rewrite the narrative of their mind"

Once they buy into this mindset, deprogramming extremists’ belief systems is a complex process. The most important step for El-Muhammady is finding what he calls “the point of deviation”: where an everyday citizen turns into a terrorist.

To do this, he asks questions about their family life, education, motivations and beliefs. How do they interpret the concept of jihad? What do they believe the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims should be?

But more important than what he asks, El-Muhammady said, is how is he asks it. To gain their trust, he must be as sincere as possible. Most detainees he works with are young — between the ages of 15 and 30 — so his work as a professor to college-age students helps him connect with them. He makes an effort to understand their vernacular, culture, symbols and shorthand. Even speaking with the wrong tone can ruin an interview.

The process varies person-by-person, but what dictates El-Muhammady’s approach is how an extremist reacts to their arrest. Some feel regret, others are confused — these people are easier to work with, he said. The hardest to rehabilitate are “hardcore” terrorists, who deeply believe that what they’ve done is for the greater good.

"If we don’t reach out to them, they’ll go deeper into hell"

“My job is to rewrite the narrative of their mind — the way they construct reality,” El-Muhammady said. “Sooner or later, they will open up. The key is to let them speak freely.”

Despite the success of the rehabilitation program, El-Muhammady believes there are ways the RMP could better prevent recovering extremists from re-engaging with terrorist networks. Access to free entrepreneurship classes would help them get back on their feet, as employers are understandably hesitant to hire former detainees.

They are also often blacklisted by banks, making it impossible for them to open an account or get a loan. If banks would accept them as customers, it would help recovering extremists get back on their feet — and allow government to monitor their transactions more easily.

El-Muhammady’s third — and most controversial suggestion — is that government give released detainees a stipend of RM 2,000-3,000 ($480-720). “If they can’t open a bank account or support yourself, you’re driving them back to militancy,” he said.

‘I risk my life for this’

Malaysia’s rehabilitation officers walk a fine line: they have to earn terrorists’ trust, then feed information about them back to authorities. They provide police with assessments on detainees’ state of mind, ideology and motivations, and testify publicly in court. When an attack occurs, they are often the authorities’ first call.

“I have to [be friendly with them], because honestly speaking, these guys know me. They know my name, my face and where I work. I have a family,” said El-Muhammady. “I risk my life for this — we mitigate that threat by establishing a normal, human relationship with them, and by not treating them as an outcast.”

While far from what most would call normal, the relationships are certainly human. El-Muhammady has a Whatsapp group conversation with the nine detainees released in June, along with a police officer. They are in constant communication, he said, with discussions ranging from world affairs to family problems. El-Muhammady jokes that his job is part-rehabilitation officer, part-marriage counsellor.

“This is a human approach to fighting terrorism,” he said. “There are a lot of people out there who are suffering. If we don’t reach out to them, they’ll go deeper into hell. A lot of the time they just need someone to talk to face-to-face, to make them feel like a person again.” —Jennifer Guay

(Picture credit: Unsplash/Hédi Benyounes)